The Sims 4 Build Mode Guide – Basics of Building Your Dream House

Under normal circumstances, you’ll spend a large part of The Sims 4 watching the Sims go about and do their daily things. However, the world needs some structural order, sometimes literally, which is why you have the Build Mode.

The Sims 4 Build Mode

The Build Mode differentiates from the standard Live Mode because the ‘simulation’ pauses, and you get a wide variety of options and tools to construct structures and manage them.

Build mode is instrumental when it comes to construction of buildings and homes.

To get into the Build Mode, click on the Hammer & Wrench icon located on the upper right corner of the screen at any time you wish. This will pause the simulation and give you various tools to use for construction.

Tools

When you enter the Build Mode, you will notice that a toolbar appears on the top of the screen. The left side of the toolbar has three different tools that can be utilized.

The tools are the Eyedropper, Sledgehammer, and the Design tool. Clicking on any of these tools will change your cursor to the shape of the tool, after which you can click on relevant locations to use the function of the tool.

If you wish to change back to your normal cursor, simply click on the left-most mouse icon on the top toolbar.

Eyedropper
Folks that are familiar with Photoshop and photo editing software would have little trouble understanding what the commonly seen eyedropper tool does. It basically just copies an object, wall or floor pattern and allows you to replicate it.

Sledgehammer
The Sledgehammer is used in order to destroy objects.

Whatever you click on with the Sledgehammer will be deleted. While using this tool, the item that is to be deleted will be highlight in white when you move your cursor on it.

Design Tool
The Design tool is the one that you will probably be using the most. Select this tool, then click on an object. If that specific object has more than one design, the various design options will come up and be selected.

You can then alter the structure according to your preference.

Coming to the right-hand side of the toolbar, you’ll have four more tools to take use of. These are the Lot Info Panel, Save to Gallery, Move House, and Change Time of Day.

Lot Info Panel
The leftmost one here in the shape of a house is the Lot Info Panel. This is a supremely useful and essential toolbar that gives you information about a specific lot and allows you to change certain variables, such as the number of bedrooms.

It also displays the value of the lot, which is what the Sims will have to pay in order to purchase it. You can also clear the existing structure through this menu by bulldozing it.

Save to Gallery
You can save your house to your library and make it available to you even when you start a new game. This is useful if you want to create custom template of different homes and buildings once you have edited them.

Through this menu, you can also choose to share your house with others if you wish to do so.

What you save can range from your entire house to even specific rooms that you have customized in the house, which can be very useful if you wish to use similar features in another house that you build.

Move House
Once you have set up your house you might be content with its design, but the same may not be true for its positioning in the lot.

That’s where the Move House option (in the form of a Plus Sign) comes in. This allows you to position your house properly in the allocated lot according to your likings.

Time of Day
Sometimes you need to know how your house looks from both inside and outside during different timings.

The time of day can be changed by clicking on the rightmost button on the toolbar. This is something you should be commonly checking, as darker rooms may be visible during day time, but at night can become pitch black and unappealing. This also allows you to adjust the lighting inside the house.

The Builds Catalog

In addition to the Tools on the top, you will also have access to the Build Catalog at the bottom left of your screen while in Build Mode. This area is where you access the catalogs from, and consists of Search, Build, Objects by Room, Objects by Function, and Household Inventory.

You can search here for specific objects by typing their name in the search box. You can also select and find objects according to rooms or the functions they perform, something you’ll be using quite a bit when building a house.

The Household Inventory is basically your storage, where you keep objects that you have purchased, collected, or earned for your home. In addition to storing your goods, the HI also allows you to sell excess and un-required objects from here.